1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicular lamp and more particularly to a vehicular lamp that has two lamp components which can give an unexpected appearance.
2. Prior Art
One type of known vehicular lamp has two lamp components with one lamp component being in front of the other. Such two lamp components respectively have light sources and reflectors that reflect light from the light sources in the forward direction. In an automobile lamp included in such a vehicular lamp, for instance, one lamp component functions as a turn signal lamp and another lamp component functions as a clearance lamp; and these lamp components are both covered by a single outer lens.
In this automobile lamp, the clearance lamp component produces white light, and the turn signal lamp component produces amber light; therefore, the appearance changes when they are lit and when they are not lit, giving an observer a sense of unexpectedness.
If, in such automobile lamp, the two lamp components are provided so as to be overlapped lengthwise (one being front of the other) such that one lamp component blocks a part of the other lamp component, then the other lamp component appears as if it is divided into two portions and gives a further sense of novelty.
However, when two lamp components are installed in a lengthwise overlapped manner so that one (first) lamp component blocks a part of the other (second) lamp component thus allowing the other lamp component to appear as if it is divided into two portions, there is no problem when both lamp components are not lit because it only gives an observer a sense of unexpectedness. However, a problem occurs when only the second lamp component which is behind the first lamp component is lit. More specifically, when the second lamp is lit, the light indicative of a single function (turning, for instance) appears to be divided into two portions. In other words, when the second lamp is a marker lamp, the light showing the functional color (amber) appears to be divided in two portions, and thus such divided lights interfere with (hinders) a determination of observers on what the lamp intends to indicate, which is not permissible for a vehicular marker lamp that requires observers to make an instantaneous determination of the meaning of the lamp or the color of the light.